Phillip Kalantzis Cope

Would-be messages from the East Village, in 140 characters or less.

I, Phone,

…have taken over, man! You can’t do without me,
forget about it, dude, you’re screwed, don’t you
understand anything? I own you

Personal

Neither a fighter nor a lover, me. Presenting: 180 lbs. of
Humanity. Single, sober, solvent, rents a flat. Touch-
starved. That’s that

Banker’s Advice

Although he could not understand the financial
information Mr. Li was giving him, he suspected Mr. Li
did not fully understand it either

Cosmopolitan (J.P. Morgan Chase)

When he informed him he was moving to France for six
months, Mr. Li looked genuinely puzzled. “France?
Why would you want to go there?”

Finding it difficult to frame a simple answer to such a
complex question, he was polite. “Oh, you know, I just
feel like going somewhere”

The Old Lovers

A decade unmet, fearful of Time’s traces,
they settled on a dinner date
in which they would dine in different places

A Chinese Hair From A Chinese Head

… coiled among murky translucent shells ripped from
shrimp bought on Canal piled like dozens of used
condoms in a bowl on the kitchen table

Embarrassment

The first warm days of Spring can be a scary thing.
Overnight, so calmly – as if they had never been – coats
and hats are shed

and each body’s truth revealed. Eyes grow busier,
bolder. They meet at crossroads. They mate. Cheeks
susceptible turn pink, then red

Madison Avenue

Uptown, you breathe the clean clear air of money. Saw
James Merrill there once, on the street. Imagine what he
could have done with a tweet

Weeping Tom

He can only hear through the air shaft, not see: The song
of life as sung by students from F.I.T. Loud, obnoxious,
excited, cheerful… young

Absence

After she died, he sensed (just once) her watching him
from the sky above 3^rd Avenue. For days she stayed
with him, like the sun’s warmth.

But now three years have passed since her burial
overseas, in an old French city, and the sky above the
East Village, his home, is empty

Illustration by Tim Milk

Some time last year, I was in line at a smoke-stand to play lotto when the man ahead of me suddenly turned from the cashier and said: “Hey, do you remember me?”

I looked him up and down. A typical neighborhood guy, a deli and bodega guy, about sixty or so. “He doesn’t remember,” he laughed to his friend behind the counter. “Well, I remember you! A long time ago you used to buy cigarettes from me. On 14th Street! Remember?”

I squinted. I drew a blank. “You don’t remember? I can’t believe it. Surely you remember that day!”

That day?

“Not even that one day? Oh my goodness! That day! You were held up that day. Right there in my store! By the kid with the silver gun!”

It all came rushing back to me: a spring day, 1981. This guy had just sold me a pack of Camels when an audacious young voice arose from my side: “Hey mister, you got any money?”

I looked down to see this boy, not quite thirteen years old, with a face so angelic it belonged on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. “Well, not today,” I told him, “Sorry.”

The boy smirked. “No problem. I got money. Wanna see?” He then pulled from his pocket a whopping stack of fifties. He fanned them in my face so I could glory in his wealth. I had heard that drug dealers were making mules out of kids, but not until now did I make the connection.

“Wanna know how I got it?” he asked. Read more…

Michael Natale on using panoramic photography, or panos, to document an East Village in transition.

“I’ve taken it upon myself to document my neighborhood in the GammaBlog. Change around here sneaks up on you. Getting it on camera before it is gone is good, I think. The panorama format is ideal for this.”
Read more…

Gustavo Valdes is better than me at ping-pong.

Then again, I imagine so are most people. I’m what some might call athletically challenged. My high school gym teacher once asked me to sit out during a flag football game because she claimed I was a safety hazard to both my classmates and myself. When it comes to possessing hand-eye coordination, I appear to be significantly lacking.

Still, I found myself vaguely interested when I heard through the East Village blogosphere that a new ping-pong table had moved to Tompkins Square Park, a permanent fixture donated by local outdoor table manufacturer, Henge Tables.
Read more…

Phoenix Eisenberg A pair of retrospectives at The New Museum – one from sculptor and video artist Lynda Benglis, the other by painter George Condo – create a dialogue about the schism between body and mind.

Currently at The New Museum on The Bowery, retrospectives from sculptor and video artist Lynda Benglis and painter George Condo explore what it is to be human.

Known for challenging conventional gender roles, many of Ms. Benglis’s sculptures explore sexuality and the complicated politics of the body. Yet, whereas Ms. Benglis focuses on the corporeal, Mr. Condo operates in the realm of the abstract, with portraits that delve into the inner psyches of his subjects. Housed a floor apart from each other, the the works of these two equally provocative artists create a dialogue where soul meets body.
Read more…

To simply call Obscura Antiques and Oddities another East Village antique store might not do justice to the offbeat and slightly macabre aesthetic that co-owners Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn have spent years cultivating in their small curiosity shop.

Carrying everything from Victorian dolls to monkey skulls, the store has become a magnet for both serious collectors and curious passerby lured in by the stuffed animal heads leering from the shop’s front window on East 10th Street.

“There’s really nothing that comes in that’s too weird but there are things that are inexplicable,” Ms. Michelson said.

The store, which has been a part of the neighborhood for almost two decades, moved to its current location between First Avenue and Avenue A in 2001.

“The energy down here is amazing,” Ms. Michelson said. “It’s the heart and soul of this business to me. It wouldn’t be right if we moved it anywhere else.”

When they’re not collecting, Ms. Michelson and Mr. Zohn are busy taping the second season of “Oddities,” a TV show that premiered on the Discovery Channel last year (it will run on the Science Channel for its second season) featuring some of the duo’s stranger finds.

NYU Journalism’s Kathryn Kattalia reports.

They don’t sit in the dentist’s chair, but they do lie on the table.

The Local paid a recent visit to St. Marks Veterinary Hospital to watch animals undergo dental work, from x-rays and blood-work to cleanings and extractions.

Though some dental tools are similar to a human’s, animals are put under anesthesia to be treated, and are sometimes covered in blankets to prevent hypothermia as their heart rates change.

It’s a complex process, but an important step in preventing serious damage to the kidneys or heart. If a pet has bad breath, trouble eating, or excessive drooling, it may be time to book a dental.

M.J. Gonzalez

Leeloo Thatcher may work in the fashion industry most of the week, but on Tuesday evenings, she volunteers at the Sixth Street Community Center’s Organic Soul Café, lending a hand in the kitchen, and joining the café’s weekly dinners.

“I started out as a CSA member, then I came down to volunteer, and then they couldn’t get rid of me,” jokes Ms. Thatcher, who started frequenting the community center on Tuesday afternoons to pick up her weekly share of fresh produce from the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) stalls.

The CSA program at the community center on Sixth Street between Avenues B and C fosters a mutually-beneficial relationship between local farmers and neighborhood residents. Local farmers harvest fresh fruits and vegetables and deliver them to the center—sometimes on that very day.

“Our goal is to provide our members with fresh, primarily organic produce, while at the same time supporting the local economy,” says Howard Brandstein, Executive Director of the Sixth Street Community Center, who co-founded the program fifteen years ago with business manager and chef Annette Averette.

For Ms. Averette, her goal in participating in the CSA stems from a more personal aspect. A survivor of ovarian cancer, Ms. Averette now attributes her good health to the healing power of good food, prompting her decision to open the Organic Soul Café five years ago. Ms. Averette maintains a fresh, mainly organic, and vegan diet—a regimen that, combined with meditation, she says led to her well-being today. Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis Cope Mars Bar and views of Ori Carino’s mural.

In the ephemeral world of public art on the Lower East Side, the longevity and unbombed state of the mural decorating the brick wall outside Mars Bar stand as a mark of respect for its creator, Ori Carino.

Hank Penza, Mars Bar’s owner, first gave Ori permission to utilize the wall in 2002. Ori’s distinctive style was already familiar in the neighborhood from the numerous murals he had designed and executed, along with art work he was hired to place on the sides of trucks, and his spray-painted t-shirts that were sold in local boutiques. At first, Ori returned annually to execute a new composition on the Mars Bar wall. The current mural has been standing since 2007. Plans to erect a 12-story apartment building on the site may threaten its continued existence.

Walking quickly along East First Street, it is difficult to fully appreciate the intense drama and rich allegorical meaning being depicted in his mural, as animal and human figures grapple with the human condition. Rather, it is necessary to slow down, pause, step back, focus on the detail, mastery, and complexity of the struggle occurring on this urban canvas to fully appreciate it.
Read more…

Claire Glass Pulino’s, 282 Bowery.

I am old enough to remember when the immediate association with “Bowery” was”bum.” The Bowery was New York’s Skid Row from the late 19th century, and its reputation was so pervasive, and so dismal, that homeless folk everywhere were known as Bowery bums. And so it’s very strange to reconfigure “Bowery” in one’s mind to denote “trendy.” It’s strange to walk past the terribly glamorous Bowery Hotel, and Daniel Boulud’s DBGB, and Peels, and to cross Houston and to find, immediately adjacent to a Chinese store which sells restaurant furnishings, Keith McNally’s rollicking pizzeria-bar, Pulino’s.

At the moment, Pulino’s is a pioneer on the desolate stretch south of Houston; but if McNally, who practically invented TriBeCa with the Odeon restaurant 30 years ago, thinks his customers will go there — which they do, in droves—you should consider investing in local real estate. I made the mistake of dropping by one weekday evening at 8:30 to have a pizza at the bar. Ha! I couldn’t even see the bar for the crowd surrounding it, and quickly fell back before the tidal swell of noise.
Read more…

As spring begins, The Local offers a quick tour of the East Village at dawn as the neighborhood shakes loose its slumber and begins its daily routines.

NYU Journalism’s Rachel Ohm reports.

Rachel Citron on photographing quirky New York.

“This, in a nutshell, is my New York. Quirky, unexpected, crowded…The image was taken during one of my many walks through Central Park last spring.”
Read more…

Tim Schreier

We at The Local try to provide a rich pastiche of news, commentary and creativity. The work of one of our community contributors, Brendan Bernhard, the author of “East Village Tweets”, has quickly gained a wide following.

Readers have found Mr. Bernhard’s work humorous, evocative, poetic, and quintessentially of the East Village.

In an e-mail exchange with The Local, Mr. Bernhard shared some insights about how he works and what moves him to write (he also passed along a photo of the dog that inspired one of his most popular “tweets,” “A Serious Mutt“):

“I am a journalist but poetry has always been my first love. I started these ‘tweets’ – they’re not real tweets, of course – because I had begun writing for this blog and wondered if I could come up with something a different which would allow me to express my feelings about the East Village. As it turns out, I have ranged from the fantastical to the concrete and various shades in between. It’s been great fun for me, it has made me look at my neighborhood in a different way (I’m practically thinking in tweets) and I hope at least a few of them have resonated with readers.”

If your comments are any indication, they have:

Leslie Monsour wrote:

“These are a new kind of super contemporary baroque haiku. Very amusing. I could go on reading.”

Marilyn Widrow said:

“Brendan has captured the essence of the East Village through imagery, poetry and sheer beauty. I feel its pulse beat.”

Janet offered:

“I don’t live in the East Village or even in Manhattan, but it’s a treat to read such elegant, evocative poesy. Please, may we have more?”

brenda cullerton asked:

“who is this furtive genius roaming around my favorite streets? The David Markson of Tweets, that’s who he is.”

“West of Broadway” said:

“These are lovely, smart, funny, delightfully observant and far more intelligent than one has a right to expect from the form. Call it poetweetery.”

Join the conversation: Have you seen other attempts at a similar form? What about the East Village does Mr. Bernhard’s poetweetery evoke for you?